Thoughts on the Reformed faith, preparation for ministry, and doing all to the glory of God.

The Tulip Driven Life Podcast

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Finding Great Joy in the Death of a Parent Through the Blood of Christ

This is a fictional piece that I wrote up. Hopefully it demonstrates the comfort we can have if our parents are believers. Next time I want to write up a piece on a more challenging issue- finding comfort in the death of a parent who isn't a believer. But for now, this.

I took one last look at the old man. His beleaguered body lie
flat on his bed, propped up slightly by the pillow he always used. He stared
vacantly at whatever was in his line of sight from the angle his head was positioned.
The white sheet covering his body up to his chest gave the impression he was
already dead. But dead he was not- the slight heaving of his belly made the
sheet rise and drop with his shallow breaths.

I stood
there, eyes red and heavy, at this point due to exhaustion and not tears. I had
long accepted the fact he was dying; now I just wished he would hurry up and
go. Everything that needed to be said between the two of us was said, and that
was satisfaction enough. Now there was nothing left- except to watch him, cold
and lifeless as he slipped away.

I sucked in a deep breath,
realizing I hadn’t been breathing myself. I walked over to Dad and squeezed his
hand tight. It was cold and clammy, like a dead fish. I didn’t know if he could
hear my words or detect my presence. That was the hardest part. I doubt he could,
but nobody leaves a parent to die by themselves. No good child who loves their
father does that.

I decided it was worthwhile, if for
no other reason to pass the time. Perhaps not everything that needed to be said
was said after all. Perhaps this is why Dad was still clinging to a completed
life. I had written it just a few hours before, and finally decided it mattered
not whether Dad could hear me. Even if he couldn’t, he would know about it soon
enough, and I’m sure it would please him just the same. I took out the napkin I
had scribbled it on and began to read:

Dad,

There are few things more important in life than
having a father that loves you. Besides having the love of God, what a child
needs more than anything is the love of his parents. And to have it means to
know, to feel and experience through action and affection, that love. I do not
know how children from broken homes make it. Truly, I do not. To have parents
who hate their children is a horrible thing, it would be better to never have
been born. Neglecting a child is to leave them naked and defenseless, exposed
and susceptible to all the sorrows and dangers of this world. Some never hear
their parents say they love them. Some do but know they really don’t.

You said it and meant it
Dad, both you and Mom. You demonstrated it in word and deed as you were called
to do. You kept me from danger even when, in my ignorance, harm was what I
wanted. You taught me right from wrong, good from evil, and disciplined me when
I chose the sin and despised the pure. When you failed you admitted it; you
repented and confessed to me, and modeled how I should repent and confess to
others, to you, and to God. You prayed for my soul and played with me as a
child. As I grew into adulthood, you became like a good friend with wise
council. Yet, whenever I needed you to still be Dad, you were. I knew to go to
you as my father even as I was a man and a father myself, because you rightly
taught me that you as a man still needed God as your heavenly father. So my dependency
on you was an extension of my dependency on Him, because when I depended on
you, I knew I was depending on Him.

A firm hand prompted by
a loving spirit is how I model my family, because it’s how you modeled your
family, because it’s how Christ models His family. This only works when the
child sees not only the angry father with the belt ready to spank the
rebellious child, but the hug after the punishment from the same swatting
father who says to the child, “I love you, I love you. This momentary pain is
to keep you from traversing that road that leads to greater pain and eternal destruction.”
With that, I see loving discipline that hurts yet heals. Indeed, the hurting is
part of the healing.

In you Dad I see a
loving care that dares to correct even when the correction runs the risk of
causing your very child you love to misunderstand, hate, and despise you. But
better for the child to be warned and you be hated than for you to be loved yet
the child not know. It’s very true, nobody likes discipline when it’s received,
but in the end we appreciate it for what it teaches us. And our wicked selves
often only respond when a bit of pain is applied. God, by His grace, often
afflicts us to sanctify us, because it takes affliction to wake us from our
spiritual slumber, to remind us that everything we are depends on Him, that
apart from Him we can do nothing.

Thank you Dad, for not
buying into the worldly psycho-babble of the day that shunned spanking and
discipline as child abuse and favored medication or simple words of
encouragement or giving into the demands of the children in order to pacify
them. Our problem isn’t our environment, it is our hearts. Our wicked behavior
has its root in our own wickedness ultimately, not confusion or being
misunderstood. To love is to correct, to neglect is to let the child do as he
wishes. Thank you, Dad, for teaching me,
for loving me as God loves His children, and then, as I grew in the Truth and
walked in the Way, thank you for giving me the freedom to use my own discretion
and make my own choices so that I could someday lead a family too. God used
your corrections and disciplines time and time again to wake me from spiritual
slumber.

You ran the race well
father, and now you are going home to see your Father, who will greet you as a
son! Imagine it, as a son! He will greet you as He greeted Jesus when He
returned to Him after rising from the dead, after paying for our sins. I pray
He brings you home now, so you can enjoy that homecoming, that celebration. Seeing
you in this state, as if between two worlds, is worse than when you were in conscious
pain from this malady. It’s time to go, and I want you to know that it’s okay.
You’ve done me well, and God has forgiven you for when you did fail, and I have
forgiven you too. I have no doubt you will receive many jewels in your crown to
cast back at His feet.

Go now Dad. Whatever our
fellowship will be like in heaven, it will only be sweeter, for it will be
freed from all struggles with sin, and it will be in the presence of our
Heavenly Father and Saving Groom, and together we will sit and learn then walk and talk about
Him with Him and all the saints
without fatigue or distraction. Forever.

I love you Dad. And I will
see you soon. Say hello to Mom for me.

I
finished the letter and crumpled it back into my pocket. The tears still did not come, but when I felt the faintest squeeze of my hand and then watched as the
sheet stopped rising, I knew he heard.

And with
absolute comfort and peace, I joyfully cried when my father died.